ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: March 2013
UPDATED: August 2020
Tips + tricks for baking up perfect French macarons
To be blatantly honest, I have been baking macarons nonstop for the past three weeks. March macaron madness, if you will. And since there is plenty of “how to make French macarons” on this sinister communication medium we call the internet, here’s what not to do.
Macaron fail #666
In my defense, my oven was lying to me. And in all seriousness, my obnoxious obsession developed several years ago when I first laid tongue and tooth on them at the original Ladurée patisserie in Paris.
Macarons are delightful, and are filled with buttercream. The delicate French pastries are lightly crisp, chewy and still manage to melt like butter in your mouth.
And I’m here to tell you crafting Parisian macarons is no different than baking American chocolate chip macarons from scratch. You simply need the proper know how. All of the fuss about how scary, temperamental and touchy macarons are is a little silly. I believe the problem is excessive over-thinking. Myself included.
Macaron fail #999
I once poked at tiny air pockets with a toothpick before baking.
NEUROTIC.
Don’t do this.
After the above fails (and a thousand others not pictured), I respectfully demanded my pastry instructor at the CIA (culinary institute, not central intelligence) convey the finer art. He graciously did. And the five steps that follow this post are all you need know. Seriously.
How TO make French macarons, seriously
But first…
In the spirit of full disclosure, even when you follow all five steps exactly, your collective batch of macarons might not emerge from the oven as you hoped. There are so many factors that can affect macarons. An undetected air bubble here, a hidden clump of almond flour there, or an oven that just won’t hold temperature. What not to do is to get upset about it, and throw ugly but perfectly edible macarons in the trash (do as I say, not as I do).
So if you decide to try your hand at Parisian macarons, harness patience. Buy an oven thermometer, a cheap digital scale and a quarter-inch pastry tip. But whatever you do, don’t be discouraged if your first batches don’t bake up perfectly. Because regardless of appearance, they will all taste wonderfully light and deliciously sweet. Seriously.
The Five French Macaron Musts
#1: Sift, seriously
And just once will do. If you are grinding your own almond flour, grind the almonds with the confectioner’s sugar. If purchased almond flour, a go-round in the food processor won’t hurt, either. What can’t be sifted into your beaten meringue is for the bin, unless you want bumpy macarons.
#2: Whip it like you mean it
Give the egg whites and granulated sugar a piece of your mind on high speed for around 5 minutes. The meringue answers to you, not the other way around. And you don’t need ancient, room temperature egg whites to whip up a nice, stiff meringue. Room temperature or cold, old or fresh – don’t discriminate. Once you can play tilt-a-whirl with the bowl and the meringue stays put, beat one more minute for good measure, and call it whipped. Think shaving cream.
#3: Love lava.
Fold the dry ingredients into the meringue until it all comes together and flows slowly like molten lava. It should be smooth and shiny, but not even remotely runny. The French call this process macaronage. Properly folded batter will settle itself into flat circles on the sheet pan within 20 seconds of piping.
#4: Pipe concise
Hold the piping bag vertical and slightly above the lined baking sheet. Chef Spiess says “start where you want to finish”, meaning hold the bag at a distance above the pan relative to the size macarons you desire. Squeeze until the batter reaches the tip, then immediately stop squeezing, and whip in a small circular motion to free the bag. This is an art. Plan for the batter to end up all over your sheet tray the first several times. Seriously.
#4.5: Tapping
For the most part, when chef Thomas Keller says do something, I do it (I worked at one of his restaurants for a time). And in the Bouchon Bistro signature cookbook, he says tap the pan lightly after piping. This helps rid the macarons of air pockets, and encourages the crinkly base called pied (feet). For more on tapping, see the afterthoughts section below the recipe.
#5: Monitor the baking
It is crucial to know if your oven is telling you lies. Mine did (see exhibit A). For these delicate macarons, 30 degrees is the difference between success and well, exhibit A. Use an oven thermometer to detect deceit. Bake the macarons between 300° F and 315° F until the tops are set, and the bottoms almost peel easily away from the parchment. For me, this is 16 to 18 minutes.
French Macaron Recipe
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 16-18 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 20–24 macarons 1x
- Category: Sweets, Recipes
- Method: Whipping!
Description
This recipe calls for the French meringue method – simply whipping the egg whites with granulated sugar. Many macaron recipes online call for the Italian meringue method, but I find this one much simpler and equally reliable.
Ingredients
For Macarons
- 150 g confectioner’s sugar
- 90g almond flour (or blanched, slivered almonds)
- 2.5 ea egg whites (about 75 g)
- 37g granulated sugar
- Pinch of cream of tartar
- Food coloring, natural recommended
- Flavoring + extracts, i.e. vanilla, lavender, citrus zest, etc.
For Buttercream
- 2 eggs, large
- ¼ cup water
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 8 oz butter, unsalted, room temperature, cut into small pieces
Instructions
For Macarons
- Line a couple baking pans with parchment or silicone baking mats. Preheat oven to 300° F.
- Grind almonds or almond flour with confectioner’s sugar in a food processor, just let it grind while you whip meringue. If using lemon or orange zest, add here.
- Combine the egg whites and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (hand mixer works, too), and whip on high speed with a whisk attachment to a stiff meringue (resembles shaving cream). Add the cream of tartar, and any color or extracts, and whip on high speed 30 seconds more to incorporate.
- Using a spatula and a sieve, fold in the dry ingredients in batches. Fold until it flows like lava, combined, but not over-mixed.
- Transfer to a piping bag (or large plastic bag) fitted with a quarter-inch tip, pinching the bottom closed so it doesn’t leak out on you. (I use a hair pin).
- Pipe onto a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Tap the sheet pan on the counter with moderate force a couple of times, rotating once.
- Optional: Let the piped macarons rest on the counter for 30 to 40 minutes. The shell will turn from shiny and sticky, to smooth and dull.
- Bake at 300° F for about 16 minutes, rotating the pan once the signature “feet” form. Cool a few minutes before removing from baking mat or parchment. Fill with buttercream and store chilled for 24 hours before serving.
For Buttercream
- In a small saucepan bring sugar and water to a boil, and cook until it reaches 234° F on a candy or meat thermometer. Sans thermometer, it usually on takes a minute or two of boiling to become hot enough).
- While syrup boils, beat eggs in a medium mixing bowl on medium speed. When syrup reaches temperature, slowly drizzle into eggs, avoiding beater or whisk attachment (if using stand mixer). Beat on high until room temperature. Add butter in several additions, and beat until smooth.
- The buttercream may appear broken (curdled), but keep beating and it will smooth out. Add extract or liqueur to taste. Store refrigerated, and bring to room temperature to use leftovers (it may need another beating to smooth out after being refrigerated).
Notes
I dare not add notes to this recipe! For all manner of tips, tricks and troubleshooting, do scroll up!
Keywords: French macarons, French macaron recipe
Afterthoughts
The Temperature Tango
Many macaron-obsessed bakers appear to follow the Martha Stewart mantra of preheat to 375° F. Then turn down to 325° F when the macarons hit the heat. Then repeat before each batch. Pierre Hermé recommends opening and closing the oven door at key times during baking. OMG, No to both. Most home ovens would go into shock. Rotate the pan halfway through baking, and the rest of the time let it be. Seriously.
The Resting Requirement
So many of the overexposed macaron authorities claim you must rest your piped batter to form a shell prior to baking. This is absolutely not true. Just ask my pastry instructor, Rudy Speiss (he’s Swiss, so he stays pretty neutral). And see exhibit C.
Exhibit A: Baked immediately.
That being shown, I have found success on occasion in resting…
Exhibit B: One batch. Half rested, half not. C’est la vie!
So I advise thinking of this step as insurance against anything that could be slightly off – whether your oven is feisty, or your macaronage is a little rough. However, if your meringue is weak and you butcher the folding process, no amount of resting (or tapping for that matter) will save your macarons.
More macaron madness
Bailey’s Irish Cream Macarons 
Lemon + strawberry macarons 
Orange creamsicle macarons + more ideas for retro flavors
Sit, stay, drool with Sadie Mae
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Interested at first, but not excited by resting macarons. And I don’t blame one sweet bit.
I tried around ten times and it cracks up or it doesn’t develop feet . I am using a gas oven with no only high and low temperature control. Could that be the reason
Hi Suma,
Absolutely, that could be the issue! If you don’t have control over the exact oven temperature, you can’t ensure you baking at the sweet spot of hot enough to create that “rise” for feet, and low enough not to brown them before they dry out. I would get an oven thermometer so you can see what you’re dealing with. Bon chance!
What do I do with failed MACARONS???
Hi Lina… unless they’re burned or completely unpalatable, I usually fill them and eat them anyway (I just don’t serve them to clients for obvious reasons). Or you could let them dry out in the fridge for a day or two, and then crumble them for ice cream topping and the like. Hope this helps the frustration!
When flowing my batter I have almond oil come up, is that normal or am I over mixing?
I meant folding not flowing
Can you tell me why my Macarons raise unevenly? They are cooked nicely, I can remove them from the parchment paper easy, but instead of having lacy foot all around all the steam releases on one side?
Hi, Muna here. I would like to know whether the macarons can be bake at night? Does night’s air affect the macarons?
Hi, Muna! Unless it is extremely humid where you are, the time of day shouldn’t affect baking. If it’s raining or really humid, it would be a good idea to let them rest on the counter after piping (in the driest place in your kitchen)… until you can gently touch the piped cookies and not damage their shape. I’ve found that resting isn’t necessary, but acts as good insurance. Thanks for reading & happy baking!
Hi,
Thanks for your recipe. I have been practicing to do make a perfect macarons. I was able to make it perfectly but since then, my macarons either, no feet, hollow inside. What could be the problem? Is it okey to bake to trays together?
Thanks,
Confused
Hi Cora,
Have you checked the accuracy of your oven? If you’ve achieved feet before, I don’t doubt your macaronage. I’ve found when I use my thinner sheet pans or don’t check my oven, I lose more cookies to bubbles/no feet. It’s perfectly fine to bake two pans at once, just make sure you rotate them halfway through (after the feet have formed). Make sure your oven is staying between 300-310 F, and see if that helps.
Happy baking,
Christina
Hi! What do you do with the extra almond flour? I froze the flour since i read online they become rancid if left in the shelf. But when i took them out again…the feel damp in my fingers. Do ou keep in vacuum bag and then freeze it?
Sorry but just wondering if you bake one tray at a time or two. I have a fan forced oven. Does this make a difference to the temperature or time of cooking. Thank you
Hi Carolyn!
Sorry for my delayed response. I usually lower the temperature for a convection (forced fan) oven between 25-50 degrees. The fan gives the oven heat much more efficiency. The time of cooking may be slightly less, but you will definitely want to lower you temperature to 300 F to start, and even lower – say 275 F – if your cookies brown too quickly. Hope you enjoy & happy baking!
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Hi. Is it okay to rest the batter for more than 30 minutes (about an hour). I plan to rest the first batch for 20 minutes so the 2nd batch will have no choice but to rest while waiting for the 1st batch to be taken out of the oven.
Thanks!
Hi Joy! Absolutely – the longer they rest, the more of a skin the cookies form. You may even get better results from your second batch. I once forget about a resting batch for an hour or two, and they baked beautifully. Happy baking!
Hi there! I like your recipe as it is so easy to understand and my macarons developed nice feet! I had my fan oven at 300C but I dont know why my macarons get a brown top at approximately 8-9 minutes, but it is obviously not cooked yet. I had my tray in the middle of the oven already. Please advise! thanks a lot.
I have the same problem with the brown top. Haven’t found answer to it. We did try putting the cookies on the lower rack and it helped a little. They are still a little brown, but less.
I know this is a bit old, but I hope this helps.
Are you really putting them in at 300C or was that a typo? If you are, that would easily explain why it’s browning before cooking through. If you’re using Celsius you would want to cook them between 149 and 157. If you’re cooking them at 300F, all I can say is get an oven thermometer and make sure that it’s heating accurately.
Hi Vivien!
I just realized I missed this comment, and I apologize!! Do you have the option of not using your convection fan? If not, you may need to turn down your oven temp. I like to think of convection as roughly 50 degrees hotter than a standard oven. Hope this helps & happy baking!
Amazing looking macarons. Resting for at least an hour, for me, just makes them more fool-proof (well, for the most part!)
It’s always an “intriguing” thing when in a large batch, literally just one or two out of a few dozen macarons cracks when the rest are perfect!
Hi you seem to know a lot about macrons and I really need some help. When I last tried to make macarons, they Completely stuck to the paper and I enwded up throwing them out. 🙁 so have you any advice for me for the next time, I’d really appreciate it!
Hi! Were you using true parchment paper, or wax paper? Did you let them cool before trying to remove them from the paper? I take the cookies off as soon as I can stand to touch them. Spritzing a little water onto the hot pan (under the paper or sil-pat) helps them pop off easily. Those are the only two steps I can think of that may cause cookies to stick, otherwise it was most likely a misstep in measuring ingredients. Let me know if you have any other questions!
I’ve tried to make french macarons plenty of times and each time I try, they never seem to form a skin. I’ve followed so many different recipes and only one of them has actually lead me to perfection, but I think I was just lucky because when I tried again, no skin was forming. So I thought it must be me doing something wrong. Any ideas of what could be the problem?
Do you live in a humid climate? Forming a skin depends on a certain level (or lack of) moisture in the batter, and in the room/oven. Have you tried letting the piped cookies rest before baking? Maybe try letting them sit a while – say 45 minutes, and see if that helps. The only other things I can think of are possibly the over-folding your batter, or not whipping your egg whites enough – they should look like shiny, shaving cream. Let me now how you get on! Thanks for stopping by!
I NEVER comment on food blogs/recipes but I am making an exception for this. I want to THANK YOU so much for this recipe. I want to start off by saying that I cannot cook, let alone bake, so it was only under the most spontaneous of conditions today where I thought to myself “maybe I’ll try to make macarons today!” So a quick decision on what flavor (orange creamsicle) led to a quick google search and came to your recipe. I’ve heard a lot (and seen from baker-friends) that macarons can be finicky and very difficult to get right. I decided to follow your instructions word for word (and they were so easy to understand) and whipped up an AMAZING batch on the FIRST try. I was so ecstatic that I made a second batch where I took this base recipe and sifted in some cocoa for chocolate macarons filled with leftover mascarpone-buttercream from the creamsicles. I’m elated with how both turned out and have your recipe and instruction to thank… I cannot wait to play around with more flavors!
I’m so pleased it helped!! Maybe you’ve got a hidden talent… Thanks for reading and hope all your sweet endeavors continue to succeed!
First time making them, & couldn’t wait for 24 hours to taste them (maybe that’s the problem) but the were not light. They were chewy & heavy. HELP! What did we do wrong. I had them at a wedding a couple weeks ago & I’m hooked!
Hi Meo! I’m not sure if the waiting was the problem.. eating them as soon as you make them will give you more of a crisp, but not a cookie that’s heavier. Hmm… I’m wondering if maybe you didn’t beat the egg whites long enough to get a light and airy meringue first? Maybe try whipping the whites a bit longer, and mixing the almond flour/sugar mixture in a little less and more gently. Whipping the whites is what adds air, and makes the cookies nice and light. Also, check your measurements for good measure (pun intended!) and really sift the dry ingredients. Let me know how you get on with them, and if you have any other questions – sorry for the delayed response! Thanks for reading:)
Thanks for the suggestions. We do measure the ingredients on a scale, and we will try the other things mentioned. My friend who visited France & had macarons there said that those cookies were also chewy, but I like the lighter version.
Wonderful recipe! Do you have one for the shiny chocolate ganache above? Mine is always dull in color.
For chocolate macarons, all you need to do for the shells is add cocoa powder to the almond flour, and bake them a little longer. The recipe for the filling can be found here: http://edibletimes.wpengine.com/chocolate-ganache/. Really simple, just chocolate and hot heavy cream. Hope this helps:)!
Amazing! I tried these today – brand new eggs and didn’t let them dry out. I’ve made macaroons once before. This recipe was much better tasting and the piping technique was really easy. The buttercream didn’t work out so well – next time!
Charlotte – I’m sure they tasted great! If by chance your buttercream looked curdled when you started adding the pieces of butter, next time just let it really beat on high for several minutes, and it will smooth out. It’s the nature of adding a fat to a hot simple syrup, but prolonged beating works every time:) Thanks for reading & happy baking!
I think we are kindred spirits. I’ve been making macarons day and night and even at 2 a.m., as the case was last night, for the past week, and I’m failing time after time. The taste is sensational, it’s just the cookies are either cracked, full of air, or like yesterday’s disaster, they’re just more like meringue cookies. After reading your post, while I have another batch of cookies “resting,” I feel like I am not alone, and that was a good feeling.
Thank you for your honesty. I needed it. No more macaron incited tears for me! I’m going to go put the cookies in the oven and see what happens. There’s already air bubbles that I can’t do anything about, and like you said, no amount of tapping will fix it. I’ve tapped the snot out of it.
Anyway, Thanks!
So glad I could offer some sympathy! It was a few years ago when I was learning how to make macarons, but I remember it vividly. And let me tell you, I am always far more successful in a professional kitchen than at home, and I’m convinced it is because of the quality of the ovens. So if they taste good, schmear some buttercream and eat ’em! After enough baking, you’ll eventually recognize the right batter consistency – err on the side of thicker is my recommendation. Maybe one day I’ll get a video up of the best way to fold in the dry ingredients… Until then best of luck, and thanks for reading!
Failed! Batter too runny! Will try again.
My guess would be that the folding in of the almond flour mixture went a little to far. Better to be a little bit on the thick side – it makes piping easier. It really should flow like slow-moving molten lava. I say mix a little, check it out for a few seconds, mix a little, check it out, so on and so on. Good luck with round two – and remember, don’t overthink it!:)
I tried it for the first time. I don’t know what have I done wrong. I knew immediately that my batter was too runny. Wondered if I used the almond flour from the freezer and didn’t not rest the flour back to room temperature first. Or I fold the batter for too long. Or something else! Will try again.
Yes it is the fact that you didn’t let the flour come to room temp & didn’t dry. This happened to me once before and I couldn’t figure it out. I then dried out my flour in the oven before making my macs and it turned out better. I think the flour soaks up the moisture in the freezer and without resting/drying the flour, it results to a liquid batter.
Hi May!
I’m not convinced it was frozen almond flour that did you in, but as a rule of thumb it is always best to have all your ingredients around room temperature (especially the eggs in this case). Hope you have found success, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Happy baking!
Hi , I made macarons today for the first time, luckily they turned out pretty decent
but the only problem is they arnt shiny and they look more like almond cookies in shape , they have developed feet at the bottom but around the circumference they are absolutely smooth , any idea why this wld have happened.
Hmmm… You may have overmixed the almond flour into the beaten egg whites, or your oven is off (I find that oven temperature is most often to blame). If you don’t have an oven thermometer, try experimenting with a 15 degree temperature difference in both directions (go higher first to get a good rise and “feet”). Also, give the macarons a good rest – say 45 minutes – before baking. I’ve found this usually to be great insurance. And once they’re done cooking, the macarons won’t be shiny coming out of the oven. The tops will be smooth, but matte. Let me know your progress – good luck, and thanks for coming by!
My eldest has been begging to make this. We’re waiting for a day where the high isn’t over 100 to try them!
I found that I needed to let my macarons “rest” until they developed a thin skin too.
It drives me crazy that I have to let them rest sometimes, but there is something about it. To be honest, I think it is the oven in our rental. Happy baking!